Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on See more

The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at the Yinxu site near modern Anyang identified as the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1250 BC. These are the oracle bones, short inscriptions carved on tortoise See more

Little is known of the grammar of the language of the Oracular and pre-Classical periods, as the texts are often of a ritual or formulaic nature, … See more

• Dobson, W.A.C.H. (1959), Late Archaic Chinese: A Grammatical Study, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-0-8020-7003-6.
• ——— (1962), Early Archaic Chinese: A … See more

Middle Chinese and its southern neighbours Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien and the Vietic branch of Austroasiatic have similar tone systems, … See more

Each character of the script represented a single Old Chinese word. Most scholars believe that these words were monosyllabic, though some have recently suggested that a minority of them had minor presyllables. The development of these characters … See more

The improved understanding of Old Chinese phonology has enabled the study of the origins of Chinese words (rather than the characters … See more